Tokopedia START Summit 2020 to Support Indonesia’s Digital Talents

Tokopedia has just held its first technology conference entitled Tokopedia START Summit 2020. This conference is one of Tokopedia’s strategic steps to support the development of digital talent in Indonesia.

With the theme ‘Transforming Indonesia Through Technology’, this conference is a place to share experiences of dozens of digital Tokopedia talents. This event is aimed at technology activists, ranging from startups, companies, communities, and the media.

“Through the START Summit, Tokopedia would like to share our experience in developing technology that is expected to be a reference for other companies, both startups or corporations that are or are planning to carry out digital transformation,” said Tokopedia co-founder and CEO William Tanuwijaya in an official statement received, Friday (2/28/2020).

In this first event, Tokopedia presents a variety of topics in the field of information technology, such as Tokopedia Technology Evolution, Future Technology Forecast, Core Engineering, Infrastructure and Productivity, Data and various other hats.

Not only innovation insight, but participants can also discuss with Tokopedia industry, community, and engineering team at ‘Leaders Circle’ which is available free of charge in the exhibition area.

The Tokopedia START Summit 2020 event is supported by the Ministry of Research and Technology / National Research and Innovation Agency (Kemenristek / BRIN) and the Ministry of Communication and Information.

“We fully support innovation and initiation from various parties in advancing Indonesia’s digital talents, including Tokopedia Academy and START Summit activities. This is in line with the government’s efforts to encourage the development of digital talent to meet the needs of industry 4.0 in Indonesia,” said Minister of Research and Technology Bambang PS Brodjonegoro.

The Important Role of AI for the Development of Tokopedia

Previously, one of Tokopedia’s focus now was to become a technology company that prioritized Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop its business. The important role of AI was explained by Tokopedia’s Senior Vice President of Engineering, Herman Widjaja.

AI together with machine learning, as well as analytic data will be part of the technology that is carried and put forward in every Tokopedia initiative. This focus makes Tokopedia calls it a company with AI-First.

Herman explained the adoption of Tokopedia mobile which has been good so far made the company can focus on adopting AI technology. This technology is claimed to make the experience of consumers and merchants better.

“After mobile penetration is already good, the next step is to move to more advanced and faster technologies such as AI. We move to AI not because we want to look cool because we have to focus more on consumers, so more advanced technology is very important,” said Herman at Tokopedia Tower, Thursday (1/30/2020).

AI Can Improve Tokopedia Services for the Better

The adoption of AI will make the Tokopedia system smarter, thus making the quality of its services better. One thing that can be done with AI, said Herman, is that Tokopedia becomes more precise and faster in predicting demand from consumers. This of course also has a good impact on the merchant business in its services.

“We have data about the traffic, to the merchant’s order, and it’s all thanks to AI. From there, we can estimate how many orders the merchant receives based on the data that was there before. With AI, the machine will continue to learn based on existing patterns. , “explained Herman.

“Therefore, we say AI-First. How can we make something that continues to grow, well its application uses machine learning and AI,” he continued.

Herman also emphasized that the presence of AI made solving problems easier. “AI is technology, technology is a tool for us to overcome problems. If in the past the problem was difficult, it was very difficult to answer because there were too many processes being worked on and various kinds, now with AI it has become easier.”